"Had he any reason for the cessation of his visits?"
"Yes," said the banker, promptly. "He was a suitor for the hand of my daughter, Lily. She rejected him—being already engaged to Mr. Darling."
"I have seen Mr. Colville," said Shelton. "He is a man of wealth and leisure—dissipated and fast, I have heard."
"You have been correctly informed," was the reply.
"Indeed?" said Mr. Shelton. He laid the card back as he spoke, and rose to take leave.
"Does this discovery throw any light on the mystery?" said the other.
"I will be frank with you, Mr. Lawrence. It does not. The case seems complicated at present, but it is my business to unravel the crooked skein, and I hope to do so. You will suffer me to retain this bit of jewelry for the present. I wish to see if Mr. Colville can furnish the missing half."
"You suspect him, then—" said the banker, breaking off his sentence because perplexed how to end it.
"I suspect him of nothing at present," was the reply. "This trinket may have been stolen from him and lost by another, I have that to find out. If it be proved that Mr. Colville lost this locket in your hall last night, my theory of a projected theft will not hold water. A gentleman of his wealth and position would not need to descend to that phase of crime. Some other object must have actuated him."
He paused, drawing on his gloves.